April 3, 2013

It's springtime, and the weather is lovely. We've been spending most of the day outdoors, and we've been making up games to play together. These tic tac toe games were a huge hit with my boys. The best part is that tic tac toe is simple for any age and requires no set up time!

I drew a tic tac toe grid on our driveway with sidewalk chalk. I instructed JZ (5) and J-Bug (3) to toss the bean bag to a square. They loved aiming and seeing where their bean bag landed.

After seeing where it landed they drew their mark in the square. JZ was X's, and J-Bug was O's. J-Bug isn't writing yet, and chalk is the perfect tool for prewriting skills. He loved drawing O's where his bean bag landed.

In fact, he drew an O no matter where his bean bag landed, even when it wasn't in a square. Then he hopped on his O.

JZ's competitive side came out in this game. He was determined to get three X's in a row.

It took him about five tries in a row to get the third X.

Victory!

We played a few variations on this game.

1. Traditional tic tac toe with one grid, and both boys took turns tossing the bean bag and trying to get three in a row.

2. They decided they each wanted their own grid, so we played a timed game to see who could get three in a row on his own grid.

3. We took turns tossing the bean bag from further and further away to see who could hit the tic tac toe grid from the greatest distance.

Pretty soon our driveway was covered with tic tac toe grids. It was the perfect way to spend the afternoon with my boys.